This application relates to a method of repairing damaged blades on an integrally bladed rotor.
Gas turbine engines typically include a compressor section which compresses air and delivers that air downstream into a combustion section. The air mixes with fuel in the combustion section and is burned. Products of this combustion pass downstream over turbine rotors, driving the turbines to rotate. In one well known type of gas turbine engine, a fan is positioned to deliver a portion of air into the compressor, and a portion of air as a propulsion source outwardly of the remainder of the gas turbine engine.
With both the fan and compressor sections, rotors including a plurality of blades are utilized. Recently, the concept of an integrally bladed rotor has been developed and utilized for both fan and compressor applications. In such a rotor, a rotor hub includes a plurality of blades metallurgically joined to the hub. The integrally bladed rotor may be formed of various highly engineered materials, such as titanium alloy materials.
When one of the blades on an integrally bladed rotor is damaged, it must be repaired or replaced according to the extent of the damage. The replacement of these blades and repair of the integrally bladed rotors has proven challenging.
One type of repair to an integrally bladed rotor is linear friction welding; specifically along a direction generally between a leading and trailing edge of the airfoil for the blade, commonly referred to as the chord-wise direction. Under such known methods, support collars are provided about both the leading and trailing edges to provide structural stiffness of those regions parallel and perpendicular to the chord-wise direction, but with unsupported intermediate portions. Prior art arrangements have not provided adequate support for linear friction welding in the chord-wise direction.